The truck arms race continues, as Ford patents new know-how that enables a truck’s mattress sides to increase and reveal hidden compartments
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From Chevy’s Multi-Flex tailgate to Ram’s Multi-Perform tailgate, and now Ford’s Professional Entry tailgate, we’re nicely and really amid a tailgate warfare. If Ford has its approach, the subsequent entrance of that warfare could also be fought additional ahead with the truck mattress.
The automaker has filed a bevy of patents within the U.S. regarding truck beds, the most recent providing just a little further space for storing. The corporate is trying into “extendable cargo mattress aspect partitions having cargo mattress entry openings.”
The thought is mainly to show the truck mattress’s sidewalls right into a matchbox that may slide open to disclose further storage behind the rear wheels. In photographs revealed with the USA Patent Workplace (and first observed by Ford Authority) we are able to see what appears to be like like a peg board for holding instruments and different goodies.
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Learn: 2024 Ford F-150 Refresh Brings New Swinging Tailgate, Cheaper Hybrid And Extra
Whereas we’re positive that no truck purchaser would flip their nostril up at further space for storing, all of it feels just a little elaborate. Particularly when you think about that the 2024 F-150 has storage compartments in the identical place which can be accessible with a easy door. Whereas that’s rather less safe, it’s additionally rather less advanced, and it might be simpler to get your instruments out of if the system fails.
This is probably not the one further area that this patent offers. In its submitting, Ford writes that the brake lights would proceed to function when the sidewalls are of their prolonged place, which can recommend that this might additionally present drivers with further mattress area, although storage compartments look like the principle characteristic Ford is worried with on this doc.
The automaker means that the extending mattress could be greatest utilized by an electrified automobile whose batteries can run an actuator to permit the mattress to increase robotically. Nevertheless, homeowners will even have the ability to prolong the mattress manually. As well as, it features a tailgate that folds down to permit individuals simpler entry to the mattress when the mattress is prolonged.
Whether or not or not this know-how makes it into manufacturing stays to be seen, however this and different patents recommend that nifty new applied sciences are coming to the tailgates of Ford vehicles sooner or later.
